Santo Bugitos House of Horrors

On the last two days of the holiday, we did the local tourist things you do when you are in the Portmadog area, mainly go on one of the steam trains and go to visit Portmeirion. I’ll cover the latter first, as it had more of an impact on me.

Portmeirion photos can be found here

I’ve never been a die hard fan on the Prisoner TV series, but a passive fan. However Portmerrion was top of my places to visit while we were over here, and I wasn’t disappointed. I started watching the series again this weekend, and its so much more interesting when you recognise the locations for the scenes from your visit.

It is a beautiful place, not massive in area village wise, but with many little passages to explore. The main square is amazing, with the best view being from No 2’s house with the green domed roof. You spot new subtle features every time you go through an area for the 2nd or 3rd time, and could happily have spent a full day there with several changes of batteries and memory cards for my camera.

The variety of colours of the buildings and styles of architecture make you wonder what’s round the next corner. The walk down to the hotel and beach leads to the stone boat that could be seen at the Old Peoples Home scenes in the TV show, and if you walk further on from there, you can reach the end of the peninsula and the lighthouse returning through the woods.

You can see why they filmed the TV series there, it has that feeling about the place, lots of little passages, stair cases going off in all directions, and lots of places to overlook you, you could be spied on here and not know, in a positive way its quite an oppressive layout, very contained, yet as a visitor it overcomes this with the amazing views from every angle on any path and from any angle

There are buildings that are there for no reason, but for aesthetic reasons, and rightly so, the village was built by Clough Williams-Ellis, it was as an indulgence, and I wish there were more indulgences like this.

If you are a die hard fan of the show, you can even buy a 5.5ft tall white balloon for £30 from number 6’s cottage, I decided to just get the t-shirt instead.

I’ll be adding the Ffestiniog railway section in the next few days.

DON’T GO TO PWLLHELI EVER! THERE IS NOTHING TO DO!

OK, warning over, lets get on with the day. Today was an early start, as I was going to a attempt an ascent of Moewlyn Mawr. Starting out from Creoso village, the plan was to ascend the peak and if time allowed a lower neighbouring peak Moel Bach. The walk started nicely with an easy stroll along the valley floor, with great views of the horseshoe of hills which make up the valley. Cloud level looked to be a little low, but I was hoping it would clear. The ascent started when I took a right fork which followed an old mining track to 500m above sea level to an old abandoned mine. The path was a continuous uphill for about 1.5 miles until I reached the mine. It would have been a damn impressive operation when it was all up and running. Visibility was not great even at 480m, but I pushed on, but after another 500m and 50m of ascent, it was down to 30m, and was relying on compass to navigate. I decided, given andreas condition, getting lost was not the best idea, If it has been just me, or if it had been a bit clearer, then it would have been no issue, but getting lost on top of a hill isn’t the best way to help andrea relax during her pregnancy.

After a breakfast at Erics climbing cafe below the Tremadog crags on the way back, I headed home, and then we all headed over to Pwllheli, and left again within ½ an hour, enough said!, its a working town with not a lot going on, unless you are staying the rather substantial holiday camp just up the road. Retracing our steps back to Portmadog, we took the toll bridge over the bay and stopped at a resturant on the coastal road in Harlech for lunch, which went down very well, with a couple of pints of Snowdownia Ales fine selection. And given the size of elises spagetti bolognaise, I’d have hated to see the adults portion. A very nice drive over to Barmouth then followed.

Barmouth is what I would call a typical seaside town, with beachside fairground and arcades, tat shops and cafes along the front. The beach is huge, forming the southern tip of Cardigan Bay, and the views over the Cader Idris range where a nice bonus as well. Elise enjoyed running barefoot on the beach as any child should do. A number of bohemian shops kept elise and andrea busy as well. We returned here on the Thursday, and enjoyed some very nice fish and chips from just up the road from the Last Drop pub, as well as elise making the most of the long promenade.

For dinner we headed to the Queens hotel in Portmadog for dinner and had some very nice tapas washed down with several pints of Crag Rat real ale. Food and service were excellent, and my Quesdillas And Spicy Meatballs were spot on.

On Tuesday we left the mainland of Wales, we travelled over the Britannia Bridge, and headed to the Anglesea Sealife Zoo. Anglesea is a strange beast when you are surrounded by mountains on the mainland, as is appears to be pretty much totally flat. However moving over to the island, gives a fantastic view of the whole showdown mountain range, and hopefully the panorama I took will come out when I get back home. The zoo was good, if a little small for the admission fee, but there was plenty to see and happily killed a few hours, including lunch at the bistro. The outdoor activities extended the stay a little bit longer, before we headed back to the mainland and the mountain village of Llanberis.

With its sheer view up to the Mt Snowdon area dominating the view to one side, and the numerous slate mines dominating the view of the hillside on the other side of the lake it certainly a scenic village, and plenty to do if you arrive earlier in the day. After a trip to Joe Browns Climbing shop to pick up some new gear, we took a walk down to the lake, and then up to the country park. There is plenty to do there when its open (we arrived at 4ish), and the lakeside steam train looked good, but by the time we got there it, and electric mountain was closing, so we headed back, going via Pen Y Pass and Bedgellert.

Of all the roads I have driven in Snowdonia, this is the most scenic so far, with view of Snowdon from all angles, as well as many other of the high peaks. It was from this road I ascended Snowdon about 6 years ago, using the Pyg Track, until now I had no compulsion to do it again, but as was head down from Pen y Pass, I caught sight of the Snowdon Horseshoe, and I immediately wanted to do the full circuit! Being here for a week, my eyes have constantly been driven to the mountains, and there are now 3 or 4 on my list of to do hills. I suspect a winter trip is due here!

Dinner again was at the Golden Fleece in Tremadog, no unusual steak this time, but a decent pie instead, washed down with several nice ales!

When we got back to the cottage, something stuck me, how many stars I could see, and the Milky Way was clearly defined, something I have witnessed for a while now, and left me gobsmacked, its a pity our cities and towns preclude this sight now for most people.

As a footnote to this article, I thoroughly recommend any of the Portmadog produced Snowdonia Ales, they were extensively sampled over the week, and not a bad pint among them!

Some how yesterday we managed to get across from Chester to Portmadog on mostly deserted roads,and no caravans to be be seen! We came down via Denbigh, over past Llyn Brenig on the B4501 and then after a short run on the A5 we headed south on the B4407 over the moors to Ffesiniog before hitting the main road to Portmadog, a fantastic drive over some stunning barren moors, not meeting a handful of cars on each of the 2 stretches. Not a place you’d want to break down however as no phone reception for 20-30 miles!

The hardest bit was finding the cottage, eventually we found it, half a mile down a track from the main road in the middle of a working farm. Very isolated, and all the better for it, its pitch dark at night, something you don’t experience enough when you live in a town or city, and not a sound can be heard once work has finished for the day. The cottage has lots of space, big rooms and very nice corner bath. Couldn’t ask for more.

There are views over all the Tremadog crags as well, and what lovely climbing rock it looks! A short walk down the track gives fantastic views of the triple peaks of Moewlyn Bach, Mawr and Hydd, all in the 700m height region, which will be attempted in the next couple of mornings on a nice 6-7 mile walk, 15 minutes drive from the cottage.

Yesterday, was a bit of a sandwich with some nice bread, and a slightly unpleasant filling, with the aforementioned drive over snowdownia being the first slice of bread. The second slice of bread being the couple of hours I spent at cricceth with elise while andrea slept off the poor nights sleep at the travelodge in the cottage. There is something about the sea at sunset, something relaxing, and this coast is not exception, a 15 minute drive down the road, its nice little resort, with a pebble beach, and the compulsary castle! The poor quality meat in the middle was the precautionary visit to local hospital for my wifes increasingly complicated pregnancy!

Today however was a joy from start to end, with the great day out at greenwood forest park, near Caenafon, however this day did confirm my hatred of roller coasts of any kind, even small moderately fast ones. I’ve hated them since I was a teenager, and not ridden one of any sort for over 15 years, and it will be about the same time again after today, this one was designed for older kids and I still felt deeply uncomfortable. Normally Andrea would go on the ride, but the pregnancy put pay to that, so I was forced to join my daughter on the ride, and she was happier than me on it! I can happily climb up a rock and be exposed to a 5m fall or hang 50m above fresh air, but give me a safe tracked ride 6-7m off the ground and I don’t like it one little bit. Life is that strange!

The drive over from the cottage via Bedgellert and Snowdonia held fantastic views. There was loads to do for elise, and was nicely quiet when we arrived at lunch, by the time we left at 3.30ish queues were starting to form, so I can’t imagine what it’d be like in peak season, my idea of hell I’d guess. However, I don’t recommend the overpriced burgers there, didn’t feel too clever for a few hours afterwards.

Going out of season has its advantages, less crowds, accommodation being half the price, and nice clear roads, however the downsides can be a lot of attractions close or scale back operations something we found in later days at some of the resort we visited.

We then took a trip over to Caernarfon on the way back, and, parking just behind the imposing castle, took a walk along the front towards the Victoria harbour, and had a drink overlooking it, before returning through the walled town. Being a Sunday, not a lot was open, so we returned to the cottage to chill before going for a very nice meal in Tremadog at the Golden Fleece. It was the first time I had eaten ostrich steak, and it won’t be the last time either, the only way I can describe it is as looking like beef with a hint of chicken in the flavour.

I pull aside the curtains from the sofa bed next to the window, it still dark, 6am I guess, I am wrong, checking my phone its 5.20am. Having nothing else left to do but lie here, I realise I could be in any hotel in this chain, in any location in the UK right now, and I would have no idea I had been moved there. A bit like a slightly less lofty Prisoner set. Indeed my stay here might be made more interesting by the factor of large white spheres following me everywhere. The receptionist doesn’t look over joyed to be working here, and I don’t blame her one little bit, you are spending 40 hours a week in a red brick hotel, just off the road which takes people to places guaranteed to be more interesting than where she is now.

Its currently 5:52am, I can’t sleep, and I’m laying here under a duvet in a back room of a Travelodge just off the A55 eastbound carriage, behind a petrol station next to a Little Chef, trying not to disturb the other two members of the family who are sleeping 5 yards away. You may ask, why not go into the reception or breakfast room to work, simple answer is that there isn’t either here, and the Little Chef doesn’t open for an hour, so I can’t pop over to there. There is no phone reception at the back end of the hotel, so anything which relies on an internet connection on my phone is out, and the wireless internet is not free, so that’s the laptop offline as well. This blog entry will be posted when I get to civilisation again.

When the route into your hotel ends with “come off the sliproad for the westbound services at junction 33, go past the garage and turn left, the hotel is not visible from the road”, its not going to be the height of luxury. Biscuits with your tea, they are available at services. Toiletries, you didn’t think to bring them yourself, services will have them in. I will, thankfully however be out of here in 3 hours, and on my way to the cottage, not far from the real life set of the Prisoner at Portmerrion. Reminder me next time when you pay £29 for a family room, you get £29 worth of room. £10 each is less than most YHA hostels, but the hostel has more facilities.

However the saving grace of this place is that is allowed us to stop over in Chester for the day on our way over to the west coast of Wales. One of my favourite small cities to visit, its full of original architecture, mostly unspoilt, with an open river side area to the south of the city among the roman ruins with its parks and pubs overlooking the River Dee, and an walkable city wall all adding my reasons to return here. Its very much like York in most of those aspects, another city I can quite happily visit for a weekend.

We have been here 3 or 4 times now as a family and there is still more to see, we still haven’t visited any of the museums, and there are areas of the city we still haven’t explored. Yesterday for the first time, we took a walk through the park next to the river, a typical 19th century ornamental garden, with the addition of the remains of the roman settlement, and the tamest squirrels you are likely to meet. Tame as in, they walk up to you and get within inches of you hand checking if you have any food for them, even with my daughter who could spook an elephant with her heavy handedness sometimes, got a close check up.

The Boat House pub served up a decent lunch, with a decent selection of JW Lees beers from Manchester, with my black pudding starter being good, but suffering from the comparison with the fantastic starter with the same ingredients at the Canalside in Skipton. If you ever need to convert somebody to black pudding then that is the place, homemade with lentils and chorizo, and served with a black pudding crockette, the taste is out of this world. The burger seemed to get my daughters approval (and she won’t just eat any burger, see refuses to go McDonalds full stop, my efforts over the last 4 years to get her to dislike the place have finally paid off!). The tuna melt seemed OK as well, but there not a lot to get wrong with a tuna melt is there!

Eschewing the Little Chef for dinner in the evening, as it would be too much of a busmans holiday for me as I work their head office in Sheffield, we headed to the nearby village of Buckley only to find that the restaurant we were looking for was closed, and a recommendation from the staff at the local co-op sent us up the road to the Red Lion, it didn’t look much from the outside, but once inside was a nice pub. The food was good with a nice cooked sirloin steak with homemade chips, jerk chicken and childs meal of chicken, veg and mash all hitting the spot, Only downside was that the starter wasn’t available, but that was a good thing in the end as it left room for chocolate pudding and cream. Service was good, with an incorrect side order being replaced without fuss.

Anyway I’ll sign off this post the way I started, and have one final rant about the Travelodge Northop Hall, and its most annoying factor, and that is due to its location on the eastbound carriageway, you can’t get directly here if you are east of the hotel, you have to travel back to previous junction and then come back through the village of Northop so you are west of the hotel, and can access it from the east bound road again, so in theory you could be 200 yards from hotel and have to travel 8 miles to get back to it, madness!

I’ve done a couple of articles in the past about my time in Leicester, and I thought it is about time I did another one.

I lived in Braunstone Frith until I moved to Coventry for University at 18, that wasn’t my first choice, I wanted to go and build robots at Reading University, but my Physics E grade at A Level let me down. Lets admit it, no member of 1991-1992 Mr Lawrence class was never going to get anything named after them physics wise. Some bright spark (no names Mr Wilford) even decided to go and study Physics as University after failing his A Level. All this after the stunning success of the GCSE’s in co-ordinated science, where 80-90% of mainly the same students achieved double A grades.

Even then I spent my weekends in Leicester during my degree working at Littlewoods in the Haymarket Centre. Originally I worked in the stockroom, then got moved to working in the cafe, keeping the crappest storeroom jobs in the process. I much prefered the storeroom, less hassle, and you could organise your day to suit yourself. Several others returned at weekends to work as well including Ian Baker, who stewarded the social club at British Shoe, where I did regular shifts on a sunday afternoon covering the lunch run in the kitchens, and doing the occasional function.

I remember my maddest weekend work wise, which was a function 8pm-2am at the social club on the friday, then 8.30-5.30 at Littlewoods follwed by another late function at the club immediately afterwards on the saturday, followed by the normal sunday lunch shift. But I think my worst sunday lunch was after a night out in Loughborough. I had been out with Adam Freestone, Benner, Tez and a few others to dance night at the Student Union. I have been awake all night, after going back to this massive 19 bedroom house and chilling out till the sunday morning, then catching the train back. On the way back I got a call asking if I could cover lunch, feeling OK at the time, I agreed. Bad Move! About an hour in the after effects of the night before kicked in, and serving food was the last thing I wanted to be doing at that moment.

I remember my maddest weekend work wise, which was a function 8pm-2am at the social club on the friday, then 8.30-5.30 at Littlewoods follwed by another late function at the club immediately afterwards on the saturday, followed by the normal sunday lunch shift, was bloody ready for a session after that. But I think my worst sunday lunch was after a night out in Loughborough. I had been out with Adam Freestone, Benner, Tez and a few others to dance night at the Student Union. I have been awake all night, after going back to this massive 19 bedroom house and chilling out till the sunday morning, then catching the train back. On the way back I got a call asking if I could cover lunch, feeling OK at the time, I agreed. Bad Move! About an hour in the after effects of the night before kicked in, and serving food was the last thing I wanted to be doing at that moment.

Work meant there were a few of us about for nights out still, which normally meant either going to wherever Mark Horne was DJ’ing that night with Ian, Phil, Simon or a combination of that circle of friends or a few beers at the Bricklayers Arms, we started drinking there underage, it was about a mile of out town, but a nice boozer, for some reason we stuck there.

If Andrew Crane or Stu Wilford was about, a visit to Fan Club or Alcatraz, after a couple of years this was more often as Stu had decided a career in Physics was not for him. These two groups were pretty exclusive in that they rarely crossed with each other.

If it was the latter was always the same ritual if the weather was good. We would meet up at Andrew’s house (Adam Freestones was on the way there if he was coming), then walk down to Stu Wilfords place, and then walk into town down the old Great Central way path at the back of New Parks to the Narborough Road Junction. A good night of moshing was followed by chips and curry sauce from the bottom of the high street and then the walk home.

I don’t know why we did walked so much, but we just seemed to walk a lot more with this group. Maybe it was because none of us had our own cars. The people who had cars were all in my other social circles, Ian Baker had a Cherry Red Mini, followed by a Metalic Grey Ford Orion, other peoples slip my mind now. The first time a car came into the Adam / Stu / Andy circle was when Adam started going out with Emma who had a car, and I admit this freely, she was taken advantage of for a few years. Other people who I hung out with as part of this group also had cars, Tez Dyer and Carl Benner, and from what I remember they were taken advantage of as much by other people.

Now a side story, somebody (possibly Tez Dyer) at one point has a small van, Rascal van size, and there were 7-8 of us in the back of it, I think Tez, Loz his brother, Adam, were all there. I can’t remember where we were going. People were smoking fags in the back, and we all fitted where we could. There was more than a couple of people who could have cut down on the pies. The driver then decided to do a sudden stop, this being a van we had no notice of this, and all I can remember is arms, legs and cigarettes flying and having to untangle the pile of limbs afterwards. I also remember a similar size van doing drive by super soakers on Dominion Road one day.

There was also a third circle of friends, mainly based around Carl Russell, most of whom were linked by basketball to him. Carl was an anomily among my friends in that he drifted in and out of my other 2 social circles as it suited him, for sport and nights out. During my summers at university I was back home, and normally temp’ed a few days during week and then did the food jobs at the weekend.

One summer I worked at Co-op doing some relabelling macros in excel for 10 weeks or so. I also played football on a wednesday night, and went for a few beers with Carl before catching last bus home from town. We seems to be able to drink a lot for not a lot of money on those nights. However one night we excelled ourselves. We had 12ish quid left on us in total, including bus fares, and somehow managed to get totally pissed on it, without student cheap deals. The first stop at the Bricklayers Arms (was O’Neills then), they had 1 quid guiness for 5 minutes after every goal, I think it was a 3-2 or a 4-2 game, but the drinking stella through a straw at the sports bar below the Grand Hotel seemed to be the moment of genius. Not the morning after however.

However the biggest part of my life from 15-20 was Role Playing Games, an interest thats been reignited in the last 3 years with the same bunch of people I played with in my teens, now through online gaming, firstly with running Rifts via skype and a GM website, then onto Dialbo 2, and very recently via Anarchy Online.

Twice a week, sunday afternoon and a midweek night, me, Stu, Adam, Andy (when he was back in leicester) and a selection from Aaron, Woody and Benner among other would congregate at Adams, Andy’s or Stus armed with dice and a 3 foot high pile of Rifts World books. (yes we had nearly 40 books for 1 game). Rifts became the main obsession. Previously we had done D&D, Ninjas and Superspies, Warhammer Fantasy, but Rifts was our game. Four Packs in hand, we played until we were to knackered or not fit to play. If Andy Crane was about it was always the prefered location to play as he had his own wing the the back of the house where we could just chilled and second and most important a full size snooker table in the conservatory.

Thats it for now….I’ll write another installment when I come up with some new stuff.

Just over 2 weeks ago, I was made redundant for the third time in my career in IT.

The previous two times had very different affects on me, the first time in 2000, I found a job straight away, my pay off and return of share save money brought me an E reg Mini and a brand new kayak, the first of which got wrote off when it did a 180 degree spin and it became 6 inches narrower than before the accident. The second I still own today, with some battle scars. It was a positive thing.
The second time about 7 years ago co-incided with a very dark period in my life, I was having massive personal problems, and losing my job was the straw that broke the camels back. The job market wasn’t brilliant, and it took me 4 months to get a new job. In the meantime I worked as a “test script monkey” on systems I was coding and designing just 12 months earlier for minimum wage via an agency. All of this combined to put me in a deep malaise, borderline depression. I would have mood swings that would make a junkie look stable. But I came out of it eventually with a decent job where I made friends who I still have today. Also I discovered my love of hill walking and climbing, via various trips I took with my mate Randolph up to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales.

This time, all the signs were there, but I was blind to see them. When I was told my job was at risk, I didn’t react well, I felt betrayed, stabbed in the back, thinking why the hell did I put in those 20 hours days when something was needed. Now I look back and can fully understand why my job had to go, but its hard to see the light, when they have just been metaphorically punched out. The consolidation of offices to the midlands, and having to balance the manpower to the work available made me the natural choice, although it would have been someone else if I had wished to move to the midlands, as I was the 2nd most experienced developer in the company at the time.

This time has also taught me two other important things, read your income protection policy carefully, finding out that you are not covered for redundancy is a kick in the balls when you have been paying in for the last year. Also I could quite easily live on half my pay if I needed to after all non essentials were taken out of the equation, and I am not a high flyer by any means, merely on a fairly average salary for an IT developer.

Finding a job is hard work, and requires dedication and organisation, it means constantly monitoring the likes of CW Jobs and Jobserve, applying for roles, chasing up agents for feedback, and fine tuning your CV. You have your very good days and very bad days. Give me regular work anyday. After a few days I got this down to an art.

Most jobs sites allow you to do job searches as an RSS feed, just pick your favourite reader, and the jobs come to you instead. You still need to do some searches, but this cuts this down 75%. My CV was fine tuned every other day, with small tweaks, added information about my side projects, and shuffling of skills. This did help get some interest as I went into week 2, from the PHP roles. If you have personal projects / websites / systems out there, make them work for you, let them sell your skills, I have no doubt this helped me get 1 or 2 interviews.

My friend Ian Nelson (www.ianfnelson.com), emailed me a load of advice on getting a new job, something he has to do more than often than most as a contractor. Two bits of advice I will pass on here, one, put a short personal statement at the top of your CV, make yourself stand out. If you want to see my CV, look on my home page (www.seanliquorish.co.uk). Second, chase the agents, its not rude, and it will make you be noticed more than others who don’t, remember they will make at least £5000 out of getting you a job, make them work for it, and don’t be pushed into something you don’t want by them if you are offered a job, make sure you are totally happy with a package and where you will work.

By the start of week 2, I had 4 interviews lined up, that was from about 30-40 applications. I found that the companies I was getting first and second interviews for 2 years ago when I took my current role, I didn’t even get my foot in the door. This was a disappointment at the time, and disheartened me. However all the hard work was worth it when the first interview came in, and then the subsequent ones just gave me more confidence day by day. The market was slower than 2 years ago, but I seemed to be doing OK in it.

My first interview was in Leeds, doing PHP and .NET, I disappointed myself here, I didn’t sell myself well enough, something I made damn sure I corrected in the second interview in Sheffield, where I put Donald Trump to shame in the selling stakes, and the interview lasted nearly 2 hours. In fact I thought afterwards that I had gone over the top in selling myself and come across pushy! The Sheffield role was a green field development to build internal systems for a national retail chain, with good resourcing and generous benefits. It was a System Architect role by any other name. In my current role, these were the projects I enjoyed most. The success of this interview boded well for the next 2.

The next day I was interviewing at a legal firm in Manchester, this one went OK, however, the style of interview dictated a different approach to answering questions, a more controlled sell of my skills. One of the skills I last used 2 years ago, came in as a trump card to get my interview here. Thats another lesson I have learnt, never mind how niche you think a skill is, put it down, as there is always a niche to fill. The second lesson from this day is to have some change on you when driving into Manchester, if you don’t, expect to get robbed by NCP. This was my first technical test, and it went well apart from the MS Word 2007 section, as I have trouble find anything in the Teletubbie interface that is Office 2007.

After this interview, I received a phone call from the agent for the Sheffield role, I was the preferred candidate, that was good news, the package and benefits were to my liking as was the role, however I had a couple of nagging doubts in my mind, which I couldn’t quite place. With this in mind, I told the agent he would have an answer after the interview at the business services supplier in Manchester the following day. The nagging doubts hit the surface at 2.30am, and didn’t leave until 6am, wiping out half a night’s sleep, not the best preparation for an interview the following morning. The nagging doubts were despatched to the agent at about 3.30am, and it took me 3 episodes of Mythbusters to get my mind relaxed enough to go back to bed.

Thankfully my lovely wife got up with my daughter, despite her own illness, and let me get another hour in bed before I got up. This time I had some change and parked at Boddingtons old site, for less than half the price of National CarPark Pirates. This interview also had a technical test, half of which I didn’t get done due to a slow virtual machine and crashing Visual Studio. The ones I didn’t get round to I answered verbally, and made up for the lack of typed evidence. The tiredness showed in the technical questions however, when simple SQL server questions I should have known just wouldn’t come to the surface. However I trumped myself with the answer to the lateral thinking question at the end which was “If you were to rebuild Manchester to its current plans and relocate the population there, how many petrol stations would you build”. The role looked good, and jumped to number 2 in my list of preferred jobs.

This was all trivial however as the doubts had been fed and satisfied by the Sheffield role and I agreed to accept it starting on 29th July, 9 days before my redundancy period finishes.

A great end to a rollercoaster 2 weeks, I’m leaving my current employers on good terms and have got a hell of a challenge to come. Remember to be patient and believe in yourself and you will get out what you put in!